Car Question: Should if fix my car of junk it?

I have a 1992 Lexus ES300. The last time I drove it I noticed there was a large amount of white smoke coming out of the tail pipe, and the car was overheating. In the months prior to this, I replaced the radiator and the thermostat. Based on this, my mechanic said that I’d blown my head gasket, and that it would be at least $2,500 to fix. I was wondering if there is anything else it could be, and whether the price he quoted me was fair? If so, would it just be better to sell/junk my car? What are the best options if I go this route? Can I sell it for parts? The car has about 140k miles on it. What do you think? Thanks in advance.

Personally, I would seriously think about replacing the car. Who knows what else is waiting in there to break? $2500 is a healthy percentage of the most you could get for the car if you sold it. Trade it in and save yourself a ton of hassles.

$2500 sounds awfully high for replaing a head gasket. Check around. I know it’s hard to put money into an old car but is the car in good shape otherwise? If so you might consider having a used engine installed. Some wrecking yards will sell the the engine and also install it. I recently had a used engine put in my Toyota truck for $1500. That included the installation, engine, a new head gasket, timing chain and sprockets and a new water pump.

If you trade cars your are going to pay the dealer $1500 or so in profit, plus taxes and you can’t be sure what the car is like.

Years of listening to Car Talk have educated me well enough to know that white smoke usually means water getting into the combustion chambers, which certainly could mean a blown head gasket.

The problem with selling it at this point is, who’s going to buy a 15 year old car with 140K and a blown head gasket?

True. I was thinking more of someone buying it for parts, or just donating it to some charity or something.

Even if you fixed it for $2,500 you’d be hard pressed to sell it or trade it in for that same amount.
I’d find somebody to take it as-is and take what ever they’ll give you for it.

NADA for a presentable 92 Lexus ES 300 is $4,000.

Assuming $2,500 is the going rate for head gasket repair I’d say you should consider doing it. And while you’re that deep into the engine consider maintenance stuff like timing belt/chain, water pump, belts, hoses, etc. Assuming there’s nothing else amiss you would be able to sell it for a good bit more than $4,000 once the repairs and maintenance are done. Or you might just want to keep the sucker for another 140k.

I’d say go for it–but once the head is off have the mechanic check for any additional damage to the head and cylinders before proceeding. If the engine’s hosed then you could be looking at a bill for $3,500 or so to replace the whole schmear with a rebuild. Still a big increase in dependability. Pricey either way, but if your alternative is a 15 year old lawn ornament…

Sorry this had to happen.

From prior experience, “at least $2500” is merely a starting point.

How long were you driving it while it was overheating and billowing steam out the tailpipe? If more than a couple minutes, there’s a good chance you’re looking at warped heads. I don’t know how robust that particular engine is, but some engines can survive, and some will warp worse than a Pringle.

If the engine is lunched and you want to drop in a long block (that’s the whole engine - crankcase and cylinder heads together - nothing to do with the size) then you’ll have a strong new engine on a 140,000 mile old transmission, and 140,000 mile old seats, and a 140,000 mile old body, and a… Get the point?

I’m surprised the head gasket packed it in so early. My '95 ES 300 is still going trouble-free at 337K (auto passed on to the littlest Mercotan recently).

bummer!

Nobody, but nobody replaces a head gasket without automatically resurfacing the heads. That cost is included in the estimate.

It could be that your mechanic is also counting on having to do a valve job. If so this brings the $2500 a little more into line. It still sounds on the high side and you might check to see exactly what your mechanic is going to give you for the quoted price.

I still think that for a car that age the used engine route is worth looking into.

When my car blew its head gasket it didn’t cost anywhere near $2,500. Maybe that’s because I was only a block away from my mechanic when the smoke started coming out and the car never overheated.

But if you’re second estimate also comes in at $2,500, I’d still consider the major repairs if the rest of the car is in good shape. Even at 140K miles, a Lexus is still a hell of a car. And after car shopping with my son for the last two weeks, I can tell you, there’s not a lot of quality cars available for twice that price. A few, but not a lot.

$2500 does not sound too out of line for a head gasket job for this type of vehicle.

It’s one thing to do a head gasket job on a 4-banger. With a 4-banger generally it’s a pretty straight-forward job because the head is easily accessible (sitting at the top of the block) and the block is smaller giving you plenty of space to work. There is also a lot less crap to remove before you pull the head.

Unfortunately, for larger displacement “v-type” engines, they are usually crammed into the engine compartment pretty tightly… making the job a serious pain in the ass… plus you essentially double the amount of work because it’s not a good idea to just replace one head gasket - you have to do both.

I had a 93 Ford Thunderbird with a 3.8L v6 blow the drivers side gasket at 67,000 miles in 1997. Very irritating, as this was a fairly common problem with this engine. I was quoted between $1700 and $2500 from various mechanics. I did it myself for a little under $800 (full gasket set… heads/intake manifold/exhaust manifold/stretch bolts… head resurfacing/cleaning, … various tools that I didn’t already have laying around like a quality torque wrench, timing light… etc). But it wasn’t, by any stretch of the imagination, an ‘easy’ job. It took 3 weekends, and a lot of cursing and banged-up knuckles, and a lot of consulting usenet for advice from the community. I did, however, get another 90k out of that car though before I bought a new vehicle and donated the T-bird to charity.

I don’t think $2500 is out of line at all for this type of vehicle.

Woah on the head gasket… Check your Vacuum Transducer on the (I asume) automatic transmission.

Friend of mine had exactly the same symptoms (with his car), and what was happening was that the transducer had totally failed. Somehow this resulted in huge billows of white/grey smoke coming from tail pipe. An honest mechanic should be able to check and replace this for under $150. Worth looking into.

Regards
FML

Someone with the technical know how to get the job done themselves for the cost of parts and machinery costs. Way less then $2500 for sure. The car itself in good drivable condition is likely worth ~$1800-$3000. So if one had to have someone else do it, the labor costs may not be worth it. Someone doing it themselves may be able to do it for a few hundred for machine work on the heads and valve parts and resurfacing, plus gaskets and misc parts, maybe $800.

If one of the heads has developed a crack the repair costs will increase exponentially.

True, there will always be what ifs. In that case, getting another used cyclinder head or two will up the costs, but not exponentially. I suppose that could happen, where you’re in a lemon cycle getting crappy used parts and getting shit on trying to get the job done. My reponse was more to the effect that a 15 year old car with 140k doesn’t always equal game over because of a serious problem. It’s situational for sure.

Well, do you want to keep the car, and do you need/want to replace it if you don’t? My 1995 Honda gave up the ghost a while back. Long story, but major engine damage. Repairing it, even with salvage parts, would have cost me way more than it was worth, with no guarantee I wouldn’t have other issues soon afterward. One of the mechanics at the shop I had look at it offered to buy it off me for almost nothing so that he could replace the engine himself in his spare time and resell it. There was no question in my mind that the shop’s estimate to replace the engine was fair, but it was more than I wanted to pay, and there’s no way I could have ever recovered any of the cost. If I’d wanted to drive it for another twelve years, I might have had them do it anyway, but I’d been thinking of replacing it anyway. So while it made no sense for me to repair it, and almost no one else would buy it in that condition, he could invest his time in it, with his actual hard costs being only what he paid me for the car and the cost of a replacement engine, leaving him enough margin in the prospective sale price of the car to make it worthwhile to him.

So if you decide you want to get rid of it, your best option might be to check around with the Lexus dealers or other shops that specialize in Toyota/Lexus repairs and see if any of the mechanics are interested in a similar deal.

I suggest you get a new car. That car was a great auto, but now it is pretty far behind safety-wise.

Donate the hulk. You might get some trade-in from a Lexus dealer.